November 21, 2017 | By a Falun Dafa practitioner in Heilongjiang Province, China

(Minghui.org) My family was so happy when I found Falun Dafa and my illnesses disappeared including neck problems, chronic cough, and osteoarthritis.

However, several months later, the Communist Party banned the practice in China and started the massive suppression.

For this year's China Fahui, I would like to share how I rejected the persecution in detention centers and a labor camp.

Following the Fa Instead of Fellow Practitioners

Four practitioners and I went to Beijing in January 2000 to appeal for Falun Dafa. Police stopped us and one practitioner told the officers where we were from. Three days later, local police came and took us back for 38 days of detention.

There were quite a few practitioners in the detention center. Many could recite Hong Yinor Essentials for Further Advancement. I could not do it and did not know what to do. Some practitioners told me their understanding of what we should do and I followed their advice.

Then I had a dream one night. I walked a long and painful journey following a person to her home. But nobody in her family allowed me to enter. During the three days I waited at the entrance, her family had meals, talking and laughing, while no one paid attention to me. Seeing that, I thought about going back home. Then a tiny car, the size of a toy, transported me to the detention center. Thinking over this dream, I realized I had to follow the Fa, not other practitioners; otherwise, I would end up in their destinies.

One day a practitioner brought in Zhuan Falun, printed out on paper from a computer. We divided the 9 lectures among 9 of us to read. But as we were about to start studying, guards came in. The other 8 practitioners turned in their portions of the book, but I decided not to follow their example and hid my part—Lecture 9—in my sleeve. The guards searched everywhere for it and ordered me to remove my clothes. The section of the book fell out and the guards tried to grab it. I did not give in and held it tightly. “You are an interesting little old lady,” smiled one guard, making fun of my height, “The others gave the book to us. Why are you so stubborn?!” Nonetheless, she allowed me to keep that section of the book and I knew I had done the right thing.

On another day, the guards saw us studying the Fa again. They ordered all of us to come out and began to search the cell. Most of the practitioners turned in the Dafa books they had and the guards then told them to go pull weeds in the field. Two guards, Shang (male officer) and Gu, asked if I had any, and I refused to answer. They forcibly searched my body and took away pages of a Dafa book I had.

“Hey! They [guards] have taken away all our Dafa books! How can you still pull weeds as if nothing has happened?” I cried out to other practitioners. Hearing this, the practitioners stopped working. When a guard told them to come in, they all returned to the cell except me.

“Why don't you go in?” asked guard Gu.

“I cannot live without the Fa,” I replied. “If I cannot protect Falun Dafa, my life in this world is meaningless. To get back Dafa books, I am willing to give my life.”

Gu was moved, “Please stop crying, little old lady. I will give it back to you.”

One practitioner heard this and said to the guard, “Thank you for you returning our Dafa books to us.”

Gu replied to her sarcastically, “Don't even think about it. Only she deserves it, not you.”

I went in the cell and Gu gave my Dafa book back to me. It reminded me to follow my understanding, rather than following others.

Safeguarding the Fa Is the Safest

My family deposited some money in my account at the detention center. But some inmates used it to purchase good food and daily items for themselves. Seeing us practitioners all eating low-grade food, one officer asked why we did not eat the same as the inmates did. After we explained to her what happened, the officer slapped the cell head in the face twice and got our money back.

Once a practitioner came in with a small-sized Zhuan Falun. To avoid it being taken away by guards, we once again split it and I had the 6th lecture. After guards saw it and asked for the book, everyone gave what they had to them. Gu patted my pocket and said to me, “Little old lady, be good,” implying that she was not asking me for the book. After that, she treated me well and never asked me to turn in my copies of the teachings. I came to understand that safeguarding the Fa is the safest. That is, when we truly act according to the Fa, no vicious forces can harm us because of Master's protection.

One year after being released, I wrote a letter to Gu without signing my name and mailed it from a nearby city. After some time, I called her and asked if she had received a letter. She said yes and was very excited. I later visited her and brought some fruits with me. Gu happily invited me to lunch with other guards and all of them said good things about Falun Dafa. They also bought the return bus ticket for me.

Family Reunion in Handcuffs

In 2001, I planned to go to Beijing again to tell the government the truth about Falun Dafa. My village officer said to me, “You can practice it at home. Why bother going to Beijing?” I discussed it with my husband, and we both agreed we could not sit there doing nothing while Master Li and Falun Dafa were being defamed. Several relatives who are practitioners joined us and the 10 of us booked train tickets to Beijing.

Upon arriving in Beijing, somehow we were separated and I stayed with two sisters-in-law. Train station security officers asked us to curse Falun Dafa and since we refused, they knew we were practitioners and took us to a temporary detention place, where I found my husband and two other family members.

Later the police took six of us back to my hometown on a train. When other passengers saw our family, all in handcuffs, they were surprised and stood up asking what had happened. “We are innocent Falun Dafa practitioners and we are good people,” I said loudly. I then told them how Falun Dafa cured my illnesses and improved my moral character. Police and officers from my hometown tried to stop me, but I did not listen. When they attempted to keep the passengers away from us, the passengers ignored them. Thus, many people on the train learned the real story of Falun Dafa.

“You Got What You Wanted, But We Didn't”

After returning to my hometown, officials kept me in a detention center and later sent me to a labor camp with a term of two years. At the detention center, I remembered Master's poem in Hong Yin:

“Who Dares Renounce Human Attachments?

While the ordinary man mightlong for Immortaldom,Behind the unbelievable wonderslies wrenching sorrow;It takes cultivating the mind,severing desires,casting off attachments,Lest man be lost in his ordealsand gripped with deep regret.”

Deep in my mind, I thought: I dare to let go of human attachments.

One day at the detention center, my spirit left my body. I felt myself float up into the sky and return home. After entering the gate, I heard birds chirping and saw a flock of phoenixes, as well as a dragon. I called out to other practitioners to come and see, but no one responded. A Buddha then descended from the sky in sitting meditation showing me lines and lines of text, but I did not recognize any of them. I continued to call other practitioners, but no one answered. Thinking something was not right, I wanted to go back.

With that thought, my spirit returned to my body. I opened my eyes and a practitioner waving her hands above my head. “Are you alright?” she asked, “You lost consciousness!” Later that night, I dreamed that Master Li was coming with a ship. Master was standing in the front of the ship and light was emitting from his body. The scene was very sacred.

The next morning, guards called out the names of me and my husband. Inmate Zhang said to me, “I heard officials had prepared two boards last night, one with your name and one with your husband's name.” She said officials would tie our hands behind our backs, hang the boards on our necks, and humiliate us in public alongside murderers, on touring vehicles. Considering it an opportunity to tell people about Falun Dafa, I did not get upset. “Nothing in my cultivation practice is accidental,” I thought.

Guard Shang opened the cell after breakfast and I walked out happily. He tied up my husband and me with ropes all around us. They took us to a big tour bus, with many police officers in uniform already standing on it. In the middle of the vehicle, there were two murderers shaking with fear.

“You can have my seat,” I said to one of the criminals, noticing he did not have a seat.

“Shut up!” yelled an officer. “If you don't want to sit, you can stand up too!”I ignored him, sat down, and turned my husband, “Today, we have to finish what Master asked us to do.”

“Keep quiet!” called the guard. “We did not do anything that violates the law,” I replied calmly.

After arriving at the town center, one guard said to me, “You can stay here; otherwise, you may cause trouble for us.”“Is this where you planned to take us?” I asked.“Yes,” he replied, “So, do you want to get out there?” “Of course,” I said.

Walking out of the vehicle, I saw a large crowd, with hundreds or thousands of people standing, sitting, or walking around. “Falun Dafa is good! Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good!” I called aloud, “Master Li is innocent. Falun Dafa is innocent. Stop violating human rights!” After I called this out three times, guards rushed over to me, covered my mouth with their hands, and took me back to the bus.

I did not stop and continued calling aloud on the bus. In the beginning, police were videotaping everything. After a while they stopped and took us back to the detention center.

“Why are you doing this?” asked one young officer.“Don't speak with her,” said an older officer. “If you do, she will talk to you about Falun Dafa.”

After a while, we returned to the detention center. “Congratulations! You got what you wanted, but we didn't,” an officer said to me.

“How come you stopped shouting?” another officer asked me.Yes, you are right, I thought. So I began to repeat loudly the phrases I called out earlier.

Hearing my voice, a crowd of guards rushed over. “What's going on? I thought you took her to the street tour to humiliate her?” One of them asked a guard behind me.“No way!” replied the guards, laughing. “She kept calling 'Falun Dafa is good' to the crowd. How could we continue like that?!”

As I walked back to my cell, practitioners in cells on both sides of the hallway looked at us, wanting to know what happened. “I did not let down our Master,” I said to them and told them about the trip. The guards, too, were also curious and talked with each other about it.

“I thought she would refuse to go on the 'street tour',” one guard said to another, “I thought they [practitioners] would probably go on a hunger strike and we would have lots of trouble. I did not guess she would go out smiling and come back laughing.”

Labor Camp

One morning, a guard called out a few names saying these five people would be sent to a labor camp. Among them were my husband and I. Thinking most inmates and guards in the detention center had known facts of Falun Dafa, I considered this an opportunity to clarify the truth at the labor camp.

Then detention center head Lin asked me to sign the labor camp detention paperwork. “All the other four have signed it,” he said, “It is your turn now.”

I thought for a while and said no, “You are sending me to a labor camp. I cannot acknowledge it.”

“It makes no difference,” he answered, “You will go there whether you agree or not.”

On the road, I talked with the driver, debunking the Party's hate propaganda against Falun Dafa. Not long after we arrived, a practitioner brought us Master's new article “Dafa Disciples’ Righteous Thoughts are Powerful,” and we all tried to memorize it. I especially remembered the sentence, “No matter what the situation, do not cooperate with the evil’s demands, orders, or what it instigates.”

The next morning, one officer asked all of us to go out for fitness exercise. Thinking of Master's article that we just read, I refused to go out. Seeing me doing so, six other practitioners also stayed inside. Hearing this, the officer returned with a few guards.

“Leave the little one [me] here. And take all the others out,” shouted head guard Wu. The guards forcibly dragged those practitioners out, some were forced to do the fitness exercises and some were beaten badly.

I was puzzled: We all did the same thing, so why did the officer treat me differently? Later I realized that I was thinking based on the Fa, while the other practitioners followed me as an example. That was the difference.

Several days later one practitioner told me the verses for sending forth righteous thoughts, and I memorized them immediately.

When head guard Wu asked me the next morning to go out for fitness exercises, I went out and began to do the Falun Dafa exercises. Seeing me doing so, Wu grabbed me by the collar, dragged me to her office, and forced me to stand straight against the wall.

“Please calm down and listen to me,” I smiled at her and said. “If I did something wrong and came to the labor camp, I would agree to doing fitness. But I was taken here for practicing Falun Dafa—that means I should do the Falun Dafa exercises here.”

She did not agree, “You have to apologize to me.” “Why?” I asked. “I did not do anything wrong.”

Guard Wu slapped me in the face, but I did not feel any pain. She then kicked me hard, and I did not feel anything either. “All right then. Now let's get to business,” she said and picked up an electric baton. I looked at the baton and repeated the verses for sending forth righteous thoughts. The baton would not discharge no matter how many times she tried. Frustrated, she threw the baton away and returned to her desk.

“Come up here,” she said to me. I went up with a smile.“You see, I am a manager here and in charge of the division. How can you let me lose face in front of so many people?!” she said furiously.

Then I recalled one part in Lecture 6 of Zhuan Falun, in which several beauties came when a young man was doing the sitting meditation. As the beauties were harassing him, the young man said he was a Falun Dafa practitioner so they should not treat him that way and the beauties disappeared instantly. I knew that, no matter how angry Wu appeared, it was part of an illusion to test me.

So I said to her sincerely, “Officer Wu, I am not thinking about losing face or not losing face. I just know I am a Falun Dafa practitioner and I have to do what I need to do.”

“All right then,” she said, “You passed the test. You can go back now.” I thanked her and returned.

After I came back, I realized that it could not have been just her saying those words. It was Master's encouragement. By then, I also had a better understanding of what Master mentioned in “Drive Out Interference:” “The Fa can break all attachments, the Fa can destroy all evil, the Fa can shatter all lies, and the Fa can strengthen righteous thoughts.” I know Master is helping us at all times.